


Traverse

by fancywaffles



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Canonical Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-15
Updated: 2015-01-15
Packaged: 2018-03-07 18:13:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3178250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fancywaffles/pseuds/fancywaffles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hawke takes a long journey post Adamant that gives his mind plenty of time to wander, between all the demons that is. Spoilers for Dragon Age: Inquisition.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Because Hawke's faced a lot worse than a giant nightmare demon and "likely" to die gives a lot of leeway.  
> (And the character design forced me to give Hawke default!beard.)

"What is on your face?"

Hawke's arms dropped loudly to his sides, from their previous outstretched position expecting a warmer reunion than _that_ comment. "Really? _That's_ your first remark to me in almost a year?" He lowered his voice to Fenris's gruff tenor to really key in how ridiculous he sounded. "'What's on your face?' What ever happened to, 'I missed you, Hawke' 'I can't live without you, Hawke,' Or the old classic of dragging me off behind some trees. It's been a _year_ , Fenris."

Fenris was seemingly unmoved by Hawke's proclamations. The stupid elf only stared up at him and blinked, as if waiting for an answer.

"Is this an insult or do you really not know what a beard is?" Hawke stared down at him and squinted to better take in Fenris's bare face. "Can you even grow a beard?"

"It looks like you took the dog's hair and stuck it to your face."

Hawke stared back at him and laughed. "Now, I'm keeping it forever. It can chafe your baby soft elven skin." The flare of irritation on Fenris's face was masking the darkening of the elf's pupils. Whether that was even deeper irritation or something else, Hawke was never sure. "Is it the lyrium tattoos? Because Carver has a problem with a unibrow that he's always trying to cover and I think that might--"

Fenris cut him off by fisting the front of his robes and dragging him down for a kiss, which was much closer to the reunion Hawke expected. And after months and months apart, much more what he actually wanted. It wasn't as if the past year had been worse than anything that happened in Kirkwall, but not having Fenris near him had made everything seem that much more bleak. The demon in the physical Fade had not been all that frightening in the end. And he'd made it out all right, not that he could remember at the moment with Fenris's strangely cold hands pulling him closer.

Maker, he missed him. He couldn't believe Fenris wasn't angrier with him. Varric said he'd been taking it out on Tevinter slavers. It wasn't like Hawke had wanted to leave him behind... or get left behind or...

Wait. Hadn't he been left behind? They'd discussed it. Alistair had wanted to stay, but he'd felt responsible. Corypheus was his responsibility...

"Do you really not like it?" Hawke asked, breathless as Fenris broke the kiss only long enough to shove them both backwards against the wall of this infernal fortress.

"I haven't had time to adjust," Fenris said. His voice had gone even lower than it's normal husk. It was doing strange things to Hawke's insides. It had been a very long year indeed.

"I missed you," Hawke said. His fingers slipped into Fenris's infuriatingly soft hair and he cupped his face, thumb gliding over the lyrium markings there. They were white still, not infected at all. Hadn't he had that thought... when Varric was telling him about the red lyrium? Hadn't he immediately thought of Fenris and keeping him away from it and how staying away made any idea of keeping away even more difficult?

Why was he thinking about Varric, again? Especially with Fenris's response being to take his thumb into his mouth. Hawke's knees felt weak and he was dizzy as Fenris's tongue flicked at the pad of his thumb. It was such a simple maneuver, but Hawke was pretty sure he was going to fall to pieces at any moment.

Hawke had tired of shaving and he knew he wasn't in the same shape he'd been when they left Kirkwall. Being on the run had lead to leaner muscles and more hollow in his cheeks. But Fenris looked exactly the same as the night he'd left.

Why wasn't he cross? Hawke had left him a note after they'd argued. Fenris hadn't wanted to be left behind, but the thought of losing _one_ more person had been too much to bear and so Hawke had left.

"You're much more forgiving than I expected," Hawke managed.

Fenris placed his fingers on Hawke's and slid his thumb out of his mouth. The wet popping noise was as illicit as the sheen of moisture now around the elf's lips.

"Do you want to talk now?"

"No," Hawke responded immediately. He wanted just this. He shut himself up by pulling Fenris towards him this time, his hand sliding to the elf's back, conforming until their bodies were perfectly parallel. Fenris's hips ground against his and Hawke buried his face in the elf's neck, tasted the skin there and ever-so-lightly brushed his lips against the lyrium markings to feel Fenris shiver against him.

"Your armor's different," Hawke said, suddenly. He wasn't bending his head quite so much anymore and--hadn't the spikes on Fenris's shoulder been there a moment before.

"It has been a year," Fenris said, desire and impatience mingling in a raspy tenor.

"Yes," Hawke tried to fill his words with apology, tried to kiss him again, except...

How had gotten back to Skyhold? Had he fallen out of the Fade after felling the giant spider demon (because it was _always_ spiders)? Or... the proximity of Fenris was making it difficult to think one way or another, except...

He didn't kiss him again. "What did the note say?" he asked.

"What?" Fenris's skin was too tanned to really see him flush unless they were this close, it added a tinge to the bright white markings on his chin.

"The note, I left you. What did it say?"

If Fenris remembered, if he had read it... there'd be an argument. Hawke had wanted him to be angry with him, angry was safer than miring that letter with all the promises he couldn't keep or something else that would've made Fenris follow him. Fenris should have punched him after he kissed him or before. He would not have let those last words go without comment. There was no way Fenris wouldn’t remember what was on that paper.

Except Fenris didn't answer, only stared at him with a slightly quirked eyebrow as if to repeat his words _do you want to talk now?_

Shit.

"I'm still in the Fade," Hawke said and stepped back, finding no wall at his back but a craggy rockface. And a desire demon looking right back at him in front of a desiccated, half frozen giant spider corpse.

"Well," he said, his voice strained in his ears as the reality reasserted itself and his injuries began to catalog looking at the face of Fenris warped by the demon's true form. "You've really improved. The last time one of you tried that it wasn't quite so realistic."

"In the Fade, all is real," the voice echoed with Fenris's tone weaved into its own demony lilt.

"Unhelpfully non-specific," Hawke said. "But I gather you mean, physical Fade, physical... well, sex. Which is somewhat horrifying on many levels, if I catch something from a demon Fenris will put a fist through my chest."

The demon laughed, mixed with a hiss. "You're here now. You're stuck. Stay with me and I will make you forget I’m not him."

He was stuck. The Inquisitor had closed the rift once safely escaped. All well and good, it had been a daring dramatic exit, after all and even Hawke assumed he'd die.

It had taken so much out of him to defeat the beast. He didn't know if he had it in him to fight a desire demon and whatever else he attracted in here as well.

"I do not wish to fight," the desire demon said. The false-face of Fenris smiled a little too wide. Hawke had done everything to earn the real smile, so much so that this false one was worse than any sexy thumb trick the demon might try.

"Too bad," Hawke said. The Fade itself sometimes shaped to dreamers, especially ones like Feynriel. That had never been a particular skill of Hawke's, but he was physically here and so physically taking from the Fade had given him the advantage to slay the nightmare demon in the end. The anger brought on, flushed the desire out of his system enough to remember that. He took again and pressed his staff into the ground letting the flames flare into the sky and burn the blasted demon to… well to here.

Its scream sounded less and less like Fenris as it tried to reach out, spitting at him. Once defeated, Hawke's anger sputtered like the flames. He was hurt; that much was obvious. He hadn't been able to defeat a nightmare demon without a few vital injuries. Now that he wasn't in the midst of a rather vivid temptation he could feel them again, pressing into his ribs. He slid to the floor, gasping for breath, realizing the panic was from more than the injuries.

The rift was closed. He was stuck in the Fade. He was stuck in the _fucking_ Fade.

"Varric'll tell the tale of my heroic sacrifice," Hawke said, out loud, trying to keep his sanity. Pretend his friends were there. "No one will know how amazing I looked freezing that demon's head and then shattering it. A tragedy of the utmost--utmost degree."

His voice cracked. The bravado was easier to keep up with friends around, the silence and stillness now that the desire demon was dead was choking at him.

First thing was first, he needed to rest. And then heal himself. And then... get the hell out of here. Except he had no idea how to do that without the giant glowy green door. It wasn't as if he could knock. That made him laugh, a low-throaty, almost panicked little chuckle. But it was a laugh at least. That was something.

"There are other rifts," the voice was not one Hawke was expecting. He'd been expecting another attempt at his life by a demon, perhaps not quite so soon, but never _that_ voice.

The demon had the audacity to even look like him at those last moments, down to the sunken way his cheeks had fallen from too much time spent scheming underground on how to murder an entire town square.

"Pride?" Hawke asked, unable to even lift himself to standing. "Or is there an Irony demon? I think that would be fitting, considering the form of the demon who will kill me in the Fade."

"I'm not a demon."

"No?" Hawke asked. "Then you're Anders' soul? Like that weird bright hat thing was the Divine, but not the Divine. Do I have to buy this act for your demon promotion or can you kill me and get it over with?"

"I'm here to help you, Hawke," the Anders-demon said. He didn't even try to sound like Anders. The voice hit the right notes, but it was too stiff, not at all cracked and assured. Vindicated and righteous. Soft-hearted and murderous. A walking, talking contradiction.

Hawke could still feel the blade going between the mage's ribs. He could still hear the death rattle Anders' had made, how peaceful he'd seemed with it all. Hawke hadn't looked to Fenris or Aveline, too unwilling to see approval in their eyes. He'd only looked at Varric, who'd understood that Hawke never wanted it to come to that.

"Sloth?" Hawke guessed. "Since you're so slow to try and kill me."

"There are other rifts," the Anders-demon repeated.

"You're a bastard," Hawke said. "Get on with it, already."

The laboriously slow sigh was irritating, but it still wasn't Anders. It was like the thing wasn't even trying. "You have already ascertained that your connection to the Fade allows you to draw deeper mana pools than your own realm. If you remember what he taught you, those injuries will not overcome you."

"You are, by far, the worst impressionist demon I have ever encountered," Hawke said. "Anders would have called me a mad fool and healed me himself. He rarely talked about himself in the third person."

"I am not Anders."

"You're not?" Hawke said, the false enthusiasm a little too loud and it twisted beneath his ribs, painfully. He wondered if the poison had gone to the same place his knife had pushed into Anders. "Give us a laugh, then," Hawke added, trying to turn the wheeze of pain into a scoff. "Who are you?"

"Justice."

Hawke didn't reply. It was difficult to reply when he was attempting to remember to breathe.

Justice continued. "Anders death severed our connection, but it has been too long since I was in my own form to remember what it looked like."

"So I killed the man and saved the demon," Hawke finally said, his voice grating with the bitter solution of that. He'd often wondered if there ever truly had been an Anders, but looking at this demon now and knowing how unlike his friend he was, the answer was obvious.

"I am not a demon," Justice replied. He stared down at Hawke, who was glaring up at him for that response or maybe only in general, and then Justice looked a little less like Anders and more like Anders during the few occasions where he hadn't been entirely himself... the affirmation that Justice was not merely an idea, but a living entity stuck inside him.

"Sell that line to Merrill," Hawke said. "Even she won’t buy it."

"It does not matter if you believe me. It only matters that you escape this place."

"Why?" Hawke said. He would have preferred to die from the Desire demon. At least then he could have seen Fenris one more time.

"The Fade is not for humans. Corypheus proved that with his malfeasance. Your death or life here makes no difference. You corrupt this place with your essence either way."

"There are other rifts," Hawke repeated. There were. He'd seen the Inquisitor shut them.

The annoying look on Justice's face looked so much like Anders' I-told-you-so face that Hawke wanted to hit him with his staff.

"So I need to heal myself," Hawke said, hating that talking to not-Anders made him feel more sane than talking to himself. "Survive the demons in the Fade and find another rift to step through, hoping that it's not going to spit me out fifty-five feet in the air?"

Justice nodded.

Hawke let out a breath and hissed at the pain it caused. "The real Anders might be a bit more helpful at the moment. I'm not... quite so skilled at healing myself."

"It is like healing others," Justice said, finally sounding too much like Anders that Hawke had to look away from him.

Helping the mage at his clinic had been one of the activities Hawke had resigned himself to during the painfully dull year he'd been recovering from the fight with the Arishok (Varric's retelling had been much kinder to how close Hawke had come to dying in that fight). Anders had worried over him and Fenris had spent most of his time avoiding him since leaving his bedroom with little to no explanation.

_"You can't charm her scrapes away," Anders said, chiding, but cheerful about it. Hawke couldn't remember the last time he'd been this relaxed. It probably helped that neither of them were bleeding internally._

_Maker, life was dull lately._

_"I don't see her complaining," Hawke retorted and the little elf child giggled, but her ear was still bleeding. He'd been able to staunch it a bit, but every time he tried twisting the mana from himself into healing her, he felt Bethany's last breaths against his fingers and nothing happened._

_Anders sighed at him and took his hand, placing it once again on the little girl's pointed ear. "Concentrate. Feel what's wrong and how it wants to fix itself. You know how things ought to be."_

_"Do you want your ear a little higher than the other?" Hawke asked the girl and her eyes widened a little until she looked at the impish smile he was giving her and then she giggled again, distracted from the pain._

_"_ Hawke _," Anders said, again._

_"All right, all right," Hawke had felt worn out for the past month. Even attending that bloody party for his Championship or whatever they were calling it had taken it out of him. How was he supposed to fix an ear of a little girl he hardly knew? He hadn't been able to fix his own sister._

_It didn't stop him from trying. Anders' hand was warm on his and he wasn't sure how the other mage was helping him focus, but Hawke felt the heat coming off the ear, infected and bleeding. It needed to cool._

_"Good, focus on the elements," Anders said. "It's easier when it comes from your natural tendencies."_

_"If I wait until she's old enough to flirt with, her ear'll fall off," Hawke said. It did not reassure the girl, but Anders snorted. "Sorry," Hawke added to the poor test subject and took Anders' advice. The chill drew the infection out of her and once he had done that it was a little easier to understand that her ear had split and needed to come back together. There was no discernible category for the type of magic that helped things come back together, but it was a rush as it worked._

_"Feel better, Enra?" Anders asked. He always knew their names._

_The little girl nodded and grinned at them. She said something in Elfish that Hawke couldn't really translate, but Anders laughed and she hopped off the table to return to her mother. Anders' hand was still on Hawke's and he hesitated before dropping it, the flush impossible to hide under such pale skin._

_If it had been even a few months ago, Hawke might have pressed and made him blush more, but now he could only think of larger elf ears and the adult they were attached to. The adult who'd helped saved the city, but hadn't shown up for that damn party._

_"Healing is a mage's natural skill," Anders was saying, rearranging some herbs in what was clearly a useless task to occupy his hands. "It isn't the lies the Chantry keeps shoving down our throats. These gifts are just that... a _gift_. They can do so much good if they would only see that."_

_"I've read your manifesto," Hawke said, unable to resist flicking the hair Anders had tied back. "Several times. It's hard to ignore when you keep shoving it in my books."_

_He needed to get Fenris another book. They were still talking, even if it wasn't the kind of talking Hawke wanted to do. It would be unkind to put off his offer to help the former slave learn to read, because of one night and unfamiliar feelings still battling for dominance in Hawke’s chest each time those deep green eyes looked into his._

_Anders had said something that Hawke had missed in that moment of distraction and Hawke automatically smiled and nodded, rather than admit he hadn't been listening._

_Anders flushed a little again, smiled back and told the next patient to come in._

Hawke tried not to focus on the words he'd missed in that moment and more on the memory of healing that ear. He'd healed much more since then, getting better at it the more Anders lost himself in his plans of setting off a war. His ribs set back into place first, allowing him to breathe and feel the places bruised within and bleeding. The Fade was an endless source of power, but Hawke took only a little at a time, knowing how much it had to set off the alerts of the demons nearby.

He was able to drag himself to his feet after a few minutes, though as much as there was mana to spare powering through him, it did nothing for the bone set weariness that fight had done to him. "Was it your idea to pretend the ceremony was exorcising you?"

"No," Justice said. "It was his."

"Of bloody course," Hawke grunted and looked around to the endless dimly lit waste of Fade Adamant. "Probably wouldn't have gone over well if he'd been, 'Well Hawke, there's this bomb I'd like to build to destroy the Chantry and all those orphans.'"

They'd felt their screams, him and Merrill. Carver, Aveline, Varric, Sebastian, and Isabela had been left in awed horror, but only Merrill had also felt the deaths pinch out so quickly in that magical explosion.

Fenris hadn't even been surprised.

Hawke stepped over the Desire demon's form, ignoring how it still looked a little like the love of his life. "Is there a direction I'm going in? Or..." He turned back towards where Justice had been, but there was nothing.

"Fantastic," Hawke said. Was it better if that was real or if he was going insane from blood loss?

No answer came from false voices or his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lovely header art by [Phoq](http://phoqingart.tumblr.com)


	2. Chapter 2

If Hawke had been walking for hours, months or days, there was not a damn thing about the scenery that was giving him a hint. The gnawing thirst was the only thing he could trust. And of course, there were suddenly glittering lakes of water spanning both sides of his trail the moment he had that thought.

Hawke focused to materialize ice in his hand and shoved it in his mouth. His lips cracked against the freeze and were blistering by the time it had melted, but it gave him enough energy to keep on a little longer.

Green glowy thing. He had to see it, reach it, and then fall out of it. That was a much simpler task than rescuing a nobleman's son from pirates, or even keeping Isabela from taking over those pirates and/or sleeping with said son. He'd fought a high dragon, a wyvern, a giant spider demon, and whatever the hell Orsino had turned himself into at the end. He could do this.

"Do you ever get tired of pretending at Bethany's optimism, brother?"

Hawke did not close his eyes, but he was tempted. When he turned towards the demon it was a near perfect assimilation of Carver. "Won't work," he said. "Carver will always be more annoying than an imitation."

He hadn't been attacked so much in his travels as beckoned to. The demons were either confused by him, wanting a way out, or merely bored.

"You can't beat everything, brother," Carver said. "That ogre died and you still lost her. That _blood mage_ ," his brother's words rattled with venom, "strung up mother like a puppet and she still died. You couldn't even kill Corypheus."

"I did kill him," Hawke replied, giving in and taking the moment to rest against his staff. "Just didn't stick. Suppose I should have kicked him a few times to make sure."

Demon-Carver's eyes glinted. He remembered that glint too well. He wanted the demon to go away. He didn't want to waste his energy killing it, especially when it looked like his little brother.

"You really think you can make it out of here? You're not a god."

"Godlike, yes, not quite so godly," Hawke retorted, enjoying the way Carver--no, not Carver--the demon's mouth curled in disgust.

"What makes you think I'm not me? What makes you think this isn't your hell and you're finally getting what you deserved?"

"Well for one thing, you're not dead," Hawke replied. It was too easy to remain calm, to ease into habits he had with the real Carver. It was the exhaustion or the power of the Fade itself that was drawing him into these conversations.

"How do you know?" Demon-Carver snapped.

"Because, I made sure of it!" Hawke snapped back.

Demon-Carver smile was smug. "And when have I ever listened to you?"

His mouth was still cold from the melted ice. The chill had spread through his esophagus and to his stomach. Now it spread to his bones. "You demons really get off on being bastards, don't you?"

Maybe he hadn't killed the nightmare after all. Maybe the nightmare was in him, eating him alive like Justice had done to Anders. Maybe, worse than death, Hawke had turned into the Abomination Fenris wouldn't be surprised at, and this was merely his mind playing with him.

"You always knew you'd lose me, brother," Carver said. "Just like you lost Father, Mother, and Bethany."

Everyone had always called him Hawke, as if he were the only one. The only Hawke, even before he’d lost Bethany. He shook his head. "No. No. I left you with Aveline. You're grumpy and mad at me, but you're fine."

"Am I? Did I seem fine when you left?" Carver asked, narrowing his eyes at him. "Did I seem like I'd stay where you left me? When has anything _ever_ worked out for you?"

_"Absolutely not," Hawke said. Even Aveline looked at him with some surprise at how authoritative his voice sounded. The only one who didn't look surprised was Carver. He'd heard that voice before._

_It was Father's._

_"I'm not a child. We both knew the risks when I joined the Wardens. If it's my time, it's my time."_

_"It’s not your_ fucking _time, Carver," Hawke said. "You really think all the Wardens are hearing the same thing at the same time and that's a coincidence?"_

_"I never should have told you," Carver muttered. He sounded so petulant. Hawke wanted to shake him._

_"If you didn't tell me, Alistair would have." Hawke remembered the glint in Carver's eyes when Alistair had introduced himself and called Hawke 'Carver's brother.' It didn't take long until it switched. It always switched, it wasn't like Hawke did it on purpose, but that was the first time he'd really seen how much it bothered Carver. "I'm not losing you too," Hawke said, trying to sound reasonable._

_Reasonable only worked on Carver half the time. He crossed his armored arms over his chest and shook his head. Didn't he know how young he still looked? "You don't get to give me permission. I'm a Grey Warden now. If my Calling is here, I'm following it."_

_"You're not a Grey Warden, you're my little brother." As always, he'd picked the absolute wrong thing to say._

_Carver glared daggers at him. "I'm going. Unless you want to use your magic to stop me."_

_"I was thinking of sitting on you," Hawke replied, angrily. "Or knocking your head against the wall. With my hand. My very non-magical hand."_

_"Enough," Aveline said, apparently winning the inner argument she'd been riling about whether or not she was going to get involved in Hawke family business (when did she not? was the better question). At least she'd talk some sense into Carver. "Hawke," she said. "Carver's right."_

_Or not._

_"Can you say that again?" Carver asked, looking about as shocked as Hawke felt, except the bastard had the nerve to look smug about it. "I would really like to hear that again."_

_"Carver's not a child," Aveline continued, unresponsive to Carver's quip. "He's a soldier. This isn't your decision."_

_It was a demon. It was a demon inhabiting Aveline's body and changing her into the stupidest--_

_"And since you're not a child," Aveline kept on, this part pitched towards Carver, "you should understand how and why Hawke is worried."_

_It was hard not to deflate at that, Carver seemed to have the same problem. Aveline went silent again, letting them look at each other. Hawke wondered if this was something specific she'd learned being a guard captain or if it was just picked up at an Aveline specialty store having to deal with too many Hawke family arguments._

_"I can't lose you too," Hawke said, not looking at him. It was too serious a thought to say and look at him at the same time. "Carver. Please stay here. Let me take the trouble. Let me be your big brother."_

_"Why do you even care?" Carver asked, too immediate to have thought how callous that sounded (as usual). "It's not like I'm Beth--" Something got through that thick skull of his and knew to stop, or he couldn't handle saying her name._

_"Oh come now, Carver," Hawke said, finally flicking his eyes up to meet his little brother's. "You know we both liked Bethany better."_

_The snort he got from Carver was as much a victory as the heavy sigh afterwards. "Fine," he said, with a crisp snap to it. Carver always hated losing arguments, even if they saved his life. "Until we figure out why this is happening, I'll stay with Aveline. But if there's a Blight--"_

_"Then you'll go hero it up with the rest of your Wardens," Hawke said. He didn't mean a word. He'd probably try freezing Carver to a lamppost if that happened, but the words were enough to get a consolatory twitch of lips from his brother._

The demon looked back at him with his brother's face and Hawke couldn't help wonder how Carver would react to the news of his death, a much better thought than thinking the idiot had turned around and joined the suicidal Wardens anyway.

"All right, what do you want?"

Demon-Carver blinked at him, as if that question had thrown him.

"You're pretending to be my brother to tempt me to do something, can we cut out the dramatics and either fight or try to make a deal? I'm exhausted. I killed a nightmare demon only hours or days earlier." He pushed himself a little taller, rather than leaning on his staff. "Possessing me won't make a tit of difference here."

"You're always so sure that I want to be you," Demon-Carver snarled.

"Don't you?"

Demon. It was a demon.

"I just want to be out of your shadow. And now I'll never be."

It had to be a demon.

"Carver got out of my shadow," Hawke said. "He's less of a dimwit. Almost masculine. Sometimes I forget how annoying he is. Only sometimes, of course, but I--he wouldn't have left. He stayed with Aveline and Aveline--" Was better at protecting people than Hawke ever was.

It probably wasn't a good thing to turn his back on a demon, but Hawke did it anyway. He couldn't look at fake Carver anymore and he still had to find some glimpse of another rift before he died of starvation (not nearly a death worthy of one of Varric’s stories). There were no stars to settle direction and he could have been walking in circles without knowing. Even _if_ the Fade followed the same rules as the real world. Or the Inquisitor hadn't sealed all the rifts up already. With Hawke's luck Corypheus had already won and was scouring the countryside, killing everyone Hawke had left.

His fingers clenched hard on the staff and he closed his eyes, begging the images of his worst nightmare to go away.

Something warm pressed against his ankle, jolting him back to the moment, but when he looked down it was only a cat. A cat in the Fade.

"Rather adorable for a demon," Hawke commented, giving a moment to glance back to see the Carver-demon no longer there staring at him with accusing eyes. The little cat-demon merely purred and wound around his legs. "I'm beginning to think you're only trying to delay me, since I haven't fought a mob of Carvers screaming that they hate me."

The orange tabby meowed at him. She or he, Hawke couldn't tell, didn't talk or do anything strange, merely kept purring.

If he'd seen the cat somewhere other than the Fade, it might not have triggered the memory on the docks, eating from a suspect looking fish cart, while Merrill tried to cheer Anders up with the prospect of kittens. Hadn't he asked after an orange tabby? He'd had one too, the Wardens had made him give it up. It had the most dreadful name, but damned if Hawke could remember.

The guilt from that made him crouch down and scratch the thing behind the ears. No turning into a giant spider, it merely rubbed its face in Hawke's hand. "Maybe you're a spirit. Or a hallucination."

The cat purred louder. "You're cute, if you're a demon," Hawke said. He felt so bone weary he almost sat down, but the moment he thought that the cat backed away, tail expanding to twice its former size.

"You're right," Hawke said. Glad to have something to talk to without a stolen face, even if it was a demon. "Have to keep on."

"Not that I know where I'm going," Hawke added after a few more minutes of silent trotting forward. He tried not to follow the cat, that was too much of an obvious trap, but he felt like keeping close to it all the same. It seemed nonplussed whenever he took a left instead of the right it had been heading in. It would change direction as if that were always its plan until it scaled the wall next to him, whining down to him occasionally for another chin scratch or merely letting out little chuffing noises.

"Merrill would love you," Hawke offered, after an uncomfortably long silence. "Probably shouldn't tell you that. She's had enough trouble with demons." He could only imagine if she'd found out there were kittens in the fade. "'Oh Hawke,'" he demurred in an imitation of her bubbly accent, "'they can't all be bad, some of them are kittens. Who would possibly think to make an evil kitten?'"

The cat's ears flicked towards him. If there was a cat expression for _you are crazy_ he was getting it. "You get used to seeing people," Hawke said. "Your friends. They're all there, for years and years and then suddenly they're not. Not Sebastian, of course, always hated that twit. He's half the reason I had to leave Kirkwall in the first place." He sighed and raked his free hand through his hair. It was getting long, but not long enough to indicate how long he'd been walking. Would the Fade keep him alive past the point of human abilities? Was he even still alive, or was he an unaware ghoul making a slow march to nothing?

He kept talking, even if it was to a probably-demon-cat. "Wouldn't sleep with Isabela. It's the first time I knew there was something wrong with him."

The cat mewed.

"Wouldn't sleep with me either," Hawke said, as if agreeing. "Friendly bet we had going. Both lost of course. Varric kept that out of the hard copy."

He chuckled, ignoring the hint of hysteria behind it. "I'm going to miss Aveline's reaction to the next Hard in Hightown installment." He jerked his chin at the cat, who was watching him suspiciously from its perch on the broken wall. "I secretly think she enjoys it. Probably reads them with her husband in the bath or however they do it."

"I would kill for a bath," he said, unable to drag his feet any further. "Or a husband," he added with another half-mad laugh that turned into a wheeze of exhaustion. When he looked back up at the wall, the cat had stopped staring at him. In fact, the cat had disappeared entirely.

Apparently babbling was demon repellent. He would never have guessed since one had almost corrupted Merrill. Unless it was cat-demon specific, which would explain as to why he hadn’t had to rescue her from kitty possession.

"You need rest." The voice startled him out of his bones. Something about Justice sounded more real than the rest of the demons in the Fade.

"I thought you were on about getting me moving."

"Your body cannot continue much longer without sleep, Hawke," Justice said with Anders' face and voice again. "If you sleep, I will guard you."

"I'd rather have the cat, thanks," Hawke spat back at him, but couldn't find the energy to move forward. He only seemed to confuse the stupid demon-spirit-whatever anyway. "Fine," Hawke said. Justice had his own goals, probably wanted to find the rift himself and pop out to find another idealistic, angry young mage to possess, but at the moment Hawke was too damn tired to care.

He collapsed against the side of the broken wall, staring out at the emptiness of the Fade and shut his eyes. He fell asleep almost immediately.


	3. Chapter 3

Hawke didn't dream, probably because he was already in the Fade, but when he woke up he felt slightly less insane. Except for the fact that Justice was gone and the cat was back. It was settled on his lap in a little ball that made it look like a pillow, fast asleep. He stroked its fur softly and sat there for a minute until it pricked its ears up and hopped off him, moving forward again.

"Don't like Justice either?" Hawke guessed, rising to his feet a bit more easily than he expected. It felt a little less silly talking to the demon now that he was less exhausted. He talked to the dog like this all the time.

The cat flicked its ears but trotted on as if expecting him to follow. Hawke noticed the landscape had completely shifted, there were no points he could be sure he hadn't already traversed and no green glowy thing in the distance. So without any better options, he followed the cat.

Sleep had been more refreshing that it ought. Hawke was able to hang his staff on his back and keep a better pace forward. There wasn't much reason to loiter, it wasn't like he wanted to take in the landscape. It was long plains of gray with craggy cliffs that bore no resemblance to any part of Thedas Hawke could recognize.

Hawke snapped his fingers. "Ser Pounce-A-Lot!" He'd said that too loudly and too suddenly, because the cat startled in front of him and yowled pathetically. "Sorry. That was the cat's name. Anders' cat. Ser Pounce-A-Lot." The cat still looked annoyed at being disturbed, so Hawke bowled on. "You probably look like him, but don't worry, I'm not going to call you something that ridiculous. Although I guess I'm one to talk, I tried to name the dog ‘Carver's face.’"

The cat was still staring at him, strangely not blinking. Its orange tail flicked loudly in thudding annoyance against the floor.

"Because he was always saying he hated the dog." Wes had a terrible habit of rolling in mud and then laying on top of Carver. Had nothing to do with Hawke spending a month teaching him that trick. "So, then he'd have to shout 'I hate Carver's face!' but you know, _he's_ Carver--" Hawke shook his head and laughed lightly. "I was fourteen."

The cat sniffed and turned back on its path as if he hadn't said anything.

"The dog thinks I'm funny," Hawke muttered, following on. Now that he was more alert, he wondered why there hadn't been more demons. He hadn't even seen any since the cat appeared. Maybe it was a spirit. Maybe the Inquisitor got the Divine as the spirit of choice and Hawke ended up with... a cat.

"Irony demon strike me down," Hawke said a little louder. The cat didn't respond. Feeling more alert, let Hawke hold his own tongue for a while. He needed to make sure the cat-spirit wasn't actually a cat-demon after all and leading him into a giant Fade hole. It was too much to count his steps to estimate how much time had passed (not to mention not the most mentally active exercise), so Hawke started counting the ice balls. He'd had four and the cat hadn't seemed interested when it was offered one. If he previously had kept track of how often he got thirsty, it was possible he could recount the amount of time it took to finally see a glowy green thing.

He ran for it, tiredness pushed out by adrenaline. The cat pranced next to him, keeping pace, which either meant it was a very fast cat or Hawke was slowed from however long he'd been trapped here. The ground beneath his feet gave way busting through a barrier from the rift ahead. Hawke grabbed the cat-spirit and pulled his staff out to create a bridge of ice, sliding across it as it created itself and crumbled until he was past it. The Fade rift was close, he could feel the draw of the real world pulling at him so strongly that he finally understood why demons were so insistent on trying to get at, no matter the cost. Then the green glow flashed and thundered across the sky and imploded, shaking the ground beneath his feet and sending Hawke sprawling forward.

The moment he looked up, Hawke wished he hadn't. It was gone. The rift was closed and his escape ended. Weariness rattled his bones and he rested his head on the ground. Maybe Demon-Carver had been right, this was his hell. It was't like he didn't deserve it. It wasn't like it wasn't exactly what he'd asked for.

_"No."_

_It was difficult that the things he loved most about Fenris were also the things that annoyed him the most. "I want to have a discussion about this."_

_"No," Fenris repeated, arms crossed._

_"Fenris," Hawke said, trying to keep the utter exasperation out of his voice. "It won't be for long, only until I figure this out."_

_Fenris looked like this argument was already over. "I have come to tolerate your need to help every person who asks it of you, but you are not doing it alone."_

_"We've been attacked nearly every day since we left Kirkwall," Hawke said. "An elf and a human traveling together would have enough trouble_ without _the ongoing Mage/Templar war, not to mention those Starkhaven bastards blaming me for everything, up and including the creation of the Blight."_

_"We have never been without enemies."_

_"You almost died!" Hawke snapped. The change on Fenris's face was immediate. It was no longer an argument brought on by too many nights in tents, now it was an argument that he was invested in._

_The scowl was normal, but the terseness to Fenris's voice was sharper than it usually was. "Because you were unprotected. If that raider had his way,_ you _would have died."_

_He didn't understand. Neither did Carver. "Then let me die," Hawke said. Fenris looked liked he'd had the wind knocked out of him, close to how he'd looked when that dagger had gotten the best of him--Hawke had spent all night wishing he had a tenth of Anders' ability to heal trying to will the life back into him._

_"That will never happen," Fenris said, fiercely. "I would die before that happened."_

_"_ That _is exactly my problem," Hawke said. He didn't dare reach for Fenris, too afraid either himself or the elf would crumble beneath a simple touch. "I didn't help you kill Danarius just to make you a slave to someone else."_

_Fenris stared him down and Hawke almost wished it was a few years ago, when a comment like that would have made him run, if only so he didn't have to see those brilliant green eyes staring at him full of anger that he'd put there. "I have chosen this."_

_"You chose that too," Hawke said, gesturing to his lyrium markings. He could never keep his tongue around Fenris, for good or ill._

_Fenris snarled at him and shoved him backwards, painfully into the nearest tree. The bark bit into Hawke's shoulder blades, but he didn't move, only stared down at Fenris, biting back the apology._

_"You are doing this on purpose to get me to leave," Fenris said, his grip not leaving Hawke's arms. There'd be bruises in the morning in the shape of Fenris's fingers. If all worked out, Hawke would be happy they were there so he could remember their exact shape and length. "Your childish taunts are nothing to the idea of living without you."_

_He'd said something similar before they'd gone up against the Templars. Sebastian had turned his back on all of them and Meredith had looked at Fenris like she'd expected him to follow, but he'd merely gone to Hawke and promised him everything Hawke wanted and no longer deserved. "It would only be for a while," Hawke tried, fight taken out of him. "I'm not planning on charging up to a dragon, but I think I could make more headway on my own." His mouth lifted at the corners and he bent forward enough so that his nose was pushing against Fenris's. "You stand out."_

_"No," Fenris repeated and instead of letting Hawke try another painfully pathetic attempt at getting him to actually take care of himself for once, he kissed him. Hawke's shoulder blades still ached and Fenris's fingers hadn't loosened around his biceps. He was physically bigger, but Fenris was stronger, not that he wanted out of his grip. If Hawke could, he would have stayed like that forever._

_"Cheating," Hawke said, when Fenris gave him a chance to breathe again. The tension was still there, taut between them underneath the desire and desperation so Hawke cupped Fenris's jaw and kissed him again, trying to smooth the elf's frown out with his tongue. The sound of Fenris's gauntlets coming off was followed soon enough by his hands unlacing Hawke's trousers. "Absolutely cheating," Hawke said, with a throaty laugh as Fenris only chuckled a response. He was convinced this was a flare up. Another fight to fan the flames of passion._

_It wasn't until the morning that he'd know different._

_Hawke drank half a bottle of lyrium potion to stay awake after a thoroughly exhausting and satisfying night and even then it was difficult to extract himself from Fenris's limbs. He spent a little too long for someone who knew this wasn't actually a suicide mission memorizing the easy planes of Fenris's face while he slept. Hawke knew if he touched him, the elf would wake from years of light sleeping on the run, so he didn't. Resisting the urge to push aside the lock of unbearably silky hair that had fallen across his brow proved to be harder than leaving._

_The note he'd left would be the last word in the argument. Hopefully it made Fenris angry enough to stick where he was for a while, instead of chasing after Hawke to personally punch him. In the end, it was only the truth._

_'I can't watch anyone else I love die. If it happens, it's your and Carver's turn._

_I'm not sorry.'_

Dying against a nightmare demon was one thing. Dying alone in the Fade was another. Hawke couldn't rise up and the position he was in felt like a bastardized version of a Chantry prayer. The Maker... after all this, who the hell would believe in him? His Circle had haunted Hawke's family in their earliest, happiest days, allowed such a thing to happen to a boy named Leto, let good people die--and wouldn't even let him go out like a hero. He had to die reaching for home?

The unfairness of it all kept him on his knees. He felt the weight of the cat on his back moments later, crawling up with the weight (but thankfully less legs than) a small dungeon spider. He felt the sandpaper tongue on his neck and then the weight settled on his shoulder blades, purring and Hawke stayed where he was.

Until the voice came back. He was too numb to be startled when Justice spoke. "There are other rifts."

"Not all of us are immortal spirit beings," Hawke mumbled into the crook of his arm. The weight on his shoulder blades had disappeared, but he hadn't felt the cat climb off.

"Does the Champion of Kirkwall bend so easily?" Justice said, as if he were taunting Hawke into the gumption to keep going.

It only made him snort. "There's no more Kirkwall to champion. They were better off without me."

"That's not true," Justice said, sounding so much like actual Anders that he had to be doing it on purpose. "We were all better off with you."

"Don't do that," Hawke said, finally sitting up to glare at the man/spirit/demon. "Haven't you taken enough from him?"

"Haven't you?" Justice replied.

"You are, by far, my least favorite thing in here," Hawke said, but whatever annoyance had ground through his system it had killed some of his defeatism. Not that he had any idea where to go. Had the cat lead him to a dead end or had it not known the rift would close? He would be a fool to trust anything in this place completely.

"The demons wish you to stay," Justice said. "That is their goal. They tempt you, thinking that the black gates will open and they will spill upon the world. Your blood sealed Corypheus, they believe you can open the Fade as well as he did."

"That's some leaps of logic isn't it?" Hawke rubbed a hand over his face. "Though whatever keeps them from adding 'attacked by demons' to this trip, I'm all for."

When he dropped his hand Justice was gone. Hawke glared at the space he left. "Not the least bit suspicious when you do that," Hawke said to nothing.


	4. Chapter 4

Hawke squinted out in all directions of the Fade, trying to catch some faint glow of green, illuminating another rift, but the emptiness brought nothing but the fear that he was trapped back full force. He picked himself up from the ground fully, leaning hard on his staff and picked a direction at random.

His thirst returned and now delightfully accompanied by a gnawing at his insides. He considered if dying of starvation was better than living off the corpses of spirit-spiders. "I should have let the damn thing kill me," Hawke said to himself to drown out the silence. The demons weren't attacking still, but the cat was nowhere to be seen.

Hawke came upon a cave entrance with no way around it. The only option was to go back the way he'd come, but even as fatalistic as he was feeling, that felt too much like defeat. He pulled on the mana of the Fade and a ball of flame lit in his hand. The fire was always the easiest. Bethany had been good at healing and the finer bits of magic their father taught, but Hawke always had the most success with baser elements.

"I suppose," he said, still talking to himself, but whispering so it wouldn't echo in the cave, "that if I'd been without Father, the Circle would have caught me up for a pyromancer. Anders said one boy burnt his barn by accident and they made him tranquil--Maker, _why_ do I keep thinking about Anders?"

The answer didn't come from a spirit or demon, it came from Hawke as he shuffled along, avoiding the shadows that danced along the cave's walls. "Because he was right." Hawke sighed, almost putting out the flame in his hand. "Not, right-right. I still think blowing up the Chantry was a bit of an overreaction, but it isn't like I can picture things improved if he hadn’t. Corypheus still would have escaped, tension still would have risen, and the fundamental flaws in the system still would have had Knight Commander Harpy trying to slaughter everyone with Templar law."

"Not to mention the red lyrium."

"Exactly," Hawke said, before he realized he was talking to someone else and not only himself. "Who are you supposed to be?"

"Your conscience," said Demon-Isabela stepping better into view.

Hawke snorted. "I would have to have a pretty flimsy moral compass if Isabela was my conscience."

"Don't you?"

"That's probably why we get along," Hawke replied, ignoring how that question rattled him.

"Red lyrium," Demon-Isabela repeated. "Do you think it's red because it's engorged?"

"I think nothing good ever comes from it," Hawke replied, remembering the way Varric had looked at his brother. Sometimes Hawke thought it would have been kinder to put Bartrand out of his misery. "Wait," Hawke said, turning towards the mimicry of his friend. "Are you saying lyrium can be aroused?"

"You would have more personal experience with that fact," Demon-Isabela said, cheekily. "I never had a chance to test out those long, lyrium lined limbs myself."

"Thank the Maker for that," Hawke agreed, appreciating the alliteration. "I have enough worries about Fenris without adding mentally comparing me to Isabela to the list."

Isabela's laugh was one thing Hawke usually enjoyed, but it was loud and should have echoed through the cave. Demon-Isabela's laugh was as loud but didn't echo at all.

"You have a funny way of showing worry, pet."

"I've often been told I'm hilarious," Hawke said, casually. "It's in writing, actually."

"Varric didn't include _everything_ did he?"

Ignoring the demon was the smart approach, but Hawke had never been truly comfortable on his own and even without the Fade the past few months of traveling without any of his friends had taken a toll on him. Besides, when had he ever taken the smart approach? "'The Champion took months to recover from being severely beaten by a Qunari before a last minute save by the dog biting the Arishok in the ass, allowed him to shoot fire into the man’s mouth' doesn't quite have the same excitement to it as a brutal duel for honor complete with impressive one-liners, I wish I'd thought of."

"Three years quickly glossed over to get to the good bits," Demon-Isabela agreed. "A lot can happen in three years."

Breaking the blood seal and letting Corypheus reap havoc on the world for one. "To you, maybe. I only remember how much sex I _wasn't_ having."

"Not entirely true, is it, sweetness?"

_They'd spent all day at the clinic. Hawke still hadn't recovered enough to take up the pile of letters requesting his aid, so he'd had nothing to do but help heal little children and get Anders to smile once in a while. Mother was out with the new friends she was making as a self-satisfied noble Amell, and Sandal was conspicuously absent since the last Enchantment had nearly blown a hole in the roof, so it was only Anders, the dog, and Hawke._

_"You want an animal that sits on your head after it ignores you?"_

_"Haven't you ever had a cat?" Anders asked, still eyeing Wes with unhidden disappointment._

_"I've had Isabela, does that count?" Hawke said, but instead of the laugh he expected, Anders turned a little with a sour sort of grunt._

_It reminded him so much of Fenris that it hurt. The idea of Anders reminding him of Fenris was so incredibly absurd that Hakwe started laughing. When Anders turned back to him, he looked more confused than anything else. "Do you always laugh at your own jokes when no one responds?"_

_Which only made him laugh harder, because well, it was funny. After a moment or so of laughing he was unable to stop, even Anders was chuckling a bit, though they'd scared the dog off to the next room.  
"Ahh, ahh damn it," Hawke said, holding his ribs. He'd laughed hard enough to rock his insides, which were still stitched up by magic and thread from that Arishok bastard's armored fists._

_Anders hands were warm on his arm and then one of them pressed up against his rib cage and that warmth traveled inside, mending all the hard work that Hawke's ribald laughter had ruined._

_"Can't you patch that up completely so I can get back to taking on dragons?"_

_"I'm a mage not a miracle worker," Anders said. His hands were still on Hawke, but he didn't seem to be doing any magic. "When did you fight a dragon."_

_"I haven't yet, but it's bound to happen. Did meet a witch who turned into one once."_

_Anders looked at him as if searching for the joke._

_"No, that really happened," Hawke said, though that subject was too close to a very bad day he would rather not recall. "Ask Aveline."_

_"I tend to avoid the guards if you haven't noticed," Anders replied, lips twitching._

_"An apostate would never be friends with the Captain of the Guard," Hawke drawled, grinning._

_Anders snorted again, shaking his head. He dropped his hand from Hawke's chest and arm, turning back towards the fireplace. "You're the only one who can get away with that."_

_"Varric painting me as a skilled marksman helps," Hawke replied. The stories Varric built kept most of the Templars at bay, but after that fight with the Arishok, Hawke was certain that Kirkwall merely tolerated his blasphemy. Useful blasphemy that it was._

_"It's not because you're a mage," Anders said, still turned towards the fireplace. "You have a way with people."_

_Before Hawke had a chance to come up with a quick reply to that beyond a smirk, Anders turned around and placed his hand back on Hawke's arm. "Justice thinks I should leave."_

_"Justice sounds like kind of a prig," Hawke commented, a little dizzy from the warmth of the fire and the sudden change between them. "What do you want?"_

_"This," Anders said and then kissed him. It was easy to lean into it, feel the stubble scrape against his chin. Anders was a little desperate with it, but even still his healer's instincts had him pressing his fingers only lightly onto Hawke's ribs, keeping the distance of their kiss infuriatingly chaste._

_"Have I been cleared for this by a medical professional?" Hawke asked, rumbled against the other mage's jaw._

_"I--" Anders didn't seem to know what to say, until he finally chose terribly. "Are you sure you want me here? I thought you and Fenris...? Or did the beast finally turn on you?"_

_"Don't call him that," Hawke said, sharply. The defensive hackles raised in him surprised both of them and Anders took a step back as if readying for an attack... or responding to one. He shouldn’t have kept flirting, Anders wasn’t Isabela or Varric, Hawke knew he didn’t take it as a friendly joke. The attention had been met and received with welcome since Fenris had ended things so suddenly, but that wasn’t fair to either of them. "I'm sorry, Anders. We can't do this."_

_"Fine," Anders said, sounding anything but. "Whatever you see in a maniac like that, perhaps at least your hand will tame him." He made a move to shoulder past Hawke, but then at the last moment moved aside, as if healer's instincts once again prevailed._

_"You clearly_ do _know nothing about dogs," Hawke said to his disappearing back. Anders said nothing._

"So I'm guilty," Hawke said, once back to himself. "I'm guilty that I lead him on and then I'm guilty that I killed him. Even though while I was trying to rebuild a friendship that did matter to me, he lied to me and made me party to mass murder? If I hadn't killed him, it would have gone worse. I was trying to fix things. It was the only option. Even Anders..."

He wasn't looking at Isabela anymore. The demon had now taken on Varric's face, and so Hawke had to adjust and look down. "Even Anders knew it was the right option. He didn't fight me."

"Blondie never would have fought you," Demon-Varric said. "That was part of the kid's charm."

"Yes, that's what I remember best about Anders, the charm," Hawke said.

"Hawke said sarcastically."

"Oh shut up," Hawke snapped. He hated it when real Varric did that, let alone a copy of him. He stopped letting the demon's distract him, remembering what Justice had said and continued his path down the cave.

The demon, of course, didn't let that stop him. "You know what your problem is, Hawke?"

"No," Hawke said, without stopping, "but I'm sure you're going to tell me."

"You buy the story. That you're actually the Hero with a capital H, free of flaws, daring to do good deeds. That your decisions aren't a total crapshoot and you don't royally screw up at every corner."

"I screw up," Hawke said. He didn't say how exactly, but he could always picture their faces. "I'm aware I have flaws. I cover them with good looks and an actual charming personality."

"Life isn't a game of Wicked Grace."

"Now, I _know_ you're not Varric," Hawke said with a snort.

"You wish you were that Hawke. The strong one, who does no wrong. The one I write and tell everyone how daring he is. The one who's never scared. You would kill to be that perfect."

"If I killed people for reasons like that, I wouldn't be perfect, now would I?"

"No, you'd be Anders."

Hawke, for once in his life, stopped talking. He made his way out of the cave silently, focusing on his footfalls and making sure he tracked the direction he headed at every turn in case he had to turn around. Spelunking jokes aside, he hated damn caves, but at least demon spiders had the sense to leave him alone.


	5. Chapter 5

The Varric-demon's nattering stopped when Hawke stopped giving rise to it. He heard heavy dwarven footfalls behind him for some time, but they stopped as suddenly as they'd arrived.

Then the cat appeared.

"And where've you been?" Hawke chided. "Hunting for demon-mice?"

The cat mewed at him.

Even the idea of demon-mice suddenly sounded appetizing. Hawke needed to get the hell out of the Fade. At least Demon-Varric had disappeared.

"Are the demons avoiding you or are you avoiding them?" Hawke asked the cat, who had no answer beyond boredly licking its paw and swiping it across its own orange face. No response to that either. Hawke sighed and made his flame a little brighter. He was at another crosspath in the cave. "Too much to hope for that you'll show me the way out?"

The cat rose to its feet and stretched deep in a way that did remind him of Isabela at the Hanged Man after a long night of Wicked Grace. Then the cat trotted towards the left path. So Hawke followed.

"Hawke!"

Hawke wasn't the least bit surprised. Merrill was about the only one they hadn't tried. He sighed and kept going, until he saw the cat stop, ears perked in the direction behind him.

"Hawke," Merrill said again. She was obviously another demon, but he found it difficult to resist that level of emotion in her voice, even if it was an imitation.

The voice seemed to be the only thing the demon got right. "Agh!" Hawke said, stepping back. The mottled copper apparition looked nothing like Merrill.

"I'm sorry," the coppery apparition said with Merrill's voice. "I didn't mean to--you're alive!"

"You look _nothing_ like her, at least the others made an effort," Hawke said. He was wasting time. He turned to make sure he hadn't lost sight of the cat, but it was right next to him. It wound itself around his legs, unbothered by the coppery disembodied demon near them.

"Ooh, is that a cat?" Merrill said in what sounded quite like Hawke's own imitation of her earlier. "Did you bring a cat to the Fade? Why would you--sorry, sorry, I'm babbling. Carver's going to be so relieved. We thought you'd died."

"We?" Hawke looked down at the cat and then back up at the apparition that sounded so close to Merrill he wanted to believe it. There had to be a nest of spiders waiting to attack him around the corner. "Merrill... is that actually you?"

"The mages, the ones I'm keeping track of from the cities. They agreed to help me dream-walk once we'd heard where you were... oh, I only was trying to find out what happened to you. It's been so horrible for Carver. I thought if he knew what really happened... but you're alive!"

"Or I'm hallucinating in the belly of a giant spider-demon," Hawke replied.

"No, you're in front of me."

Oh bother, it _was_ Merrill. Hawke could have wept with relief. "Carver's alive? He stayed away from the Wardens after all?"

"Well, sort of," Merrill said, sounding a little guilty. "He's gone back to them since Corypheus died. Said they needed help rounding up any still left under the influence."

"Corypheus is dead?" Hawke asked. That was too much to hope for.

"Yes, it was a big to-do, from what Varric says, but you know how he exaggerates these things. Lovely story for what it was worth. I like reading his."

"Is--Fenris--" He couldn't even finish the sentence.

"He's going to be so cross with you," Merrill said, almost like a blurt. "I mean, he'll be happy, of course, however it looks on him."

Relief almost took him to his knees again. "Don't tell him anything. Or Carver."

"Why not?"

"I don't want them to grieve twice. I'm not sure I know how to get out of here."

"Oh," Merrill sounded frantic. "We'll find a way. Now that I know you're all right, we'll figure something out. I can send a letter to Aveline and Isabela and everyone and we'll..."

"Go traipsing into the Fade?" Always happiness and relief were so short lived. "You're barely holding that form as is and however many mages you’re using to keep it will be too bright a target for Templars."

"You can find a way out," Merrill said. "You got in. You can get out."

"The cat seems to know," Hawke said, reaching down to scratch the thing behind the ears. It also seemed to avoid the demons, giving more weight to Merrill's presence beyond her Merrill-ness.

"Is it a cat that's a demon?" Merrill asked, intrigued. "Or is it a normal cat that got caught up with you?"

"I can't see a normal cat having such a sense of direction."

"Maybe it's an aspect of an elven god," Merrill said, her strange mix of cheer and history taking over. "There were tales the Keeper told us long ago about the shards of souls taking over small creatures to guide us out of nightmares."

"This is definitely a nightmare, but I don't think an elven god would have much interest in a human mage."

The cat hissed, at first Hawke thought it was at Merrill, but soon after the hiss it disappeared.

And Justice was back.

"Each distraction takes time from your travels," Justice said.

"Anders!" Merrill said, apparently startling herself out of the apparition. The coppery shimmer disappeared and with it, Hawke's only connection to the real world.

"No!" He whirled around to glare at Justice. "That was Merrill. _Really_ Merrill!"

"Can you be sure?" Justice asked, but he didn't give Hawke a chance to respond (and oh, he _had_ a response) before continuing. "It is no matter, it wastes time. _You_ are wasting time with your trivial distractions."

"You being right about it, doesn't make it any less annoying!" Hawke snapped and turned towards the direction he thought the cat had gone. The flame in his hand flared even higher. "Why do you want me out of here anyway? Your timing has been more than a little coincidental."

"I am merely directing your path as much as the rules of the Fade allow."

"Rules, justice, order." Hawke kept his pace, despite the fatigue at his bones. Merrill had given him hope. If Corypheus was destroyed (whether that was permanent or not he could deal with later) then the people he loved were safe. "Oh shit," Hawke said as it hit him. "They'd be sealing the rifts, wouldn't they?"

Random rips in the Fade littering the countryside. That would have to be the next priority of the Inquisitor. Hawke wished the Herald of Andraste had been more of a lay-about. There'd never been a better time for procrastination.

"They are shrinking," Justice agreed. "Your time runs thin."

"Doesn't it always?" Hawke said, not expecting an answer. He had increased his speed as much as the weariness in his bones would let him. "What is with you and the spirit-cat?" Hawke asked, hoping for an answer as Justice kept pace with him (only _he_ wasn't out of breath).

"Why do you keep speaking of a cat?" Justice asked.

"I never see you in the same place at the same time. I'm beginning to think you _are_ the cat," Hawke said. "The cuddly side of Justice, the--"

He breathed out sharply, not from the fevered speed, but from the words that almost left his lips.

"I bet the Inquisitor," Hawke said, immediately changing subjects, "is just out there, closing rifts and so proud about it. I bet there's cheering. Meanwhile here I am, stuck with the dullest spirit in the Fade and demons pointing out all my flaws. I bet Varric writes a book about the glory of the Inquisition with more dirty bits than mine got. Bastard."

Justice said nothing, but he didn't leave either. Hawke wasn't sure he wanted him to. If he did, the cat would come back and the cat might not have been demon, spirit, or cat at all.

The cat might have been whatever was left of Anders.


	6. Chapter 6

After a some time had passed, what Hawke was doing could no longer, in any reasonable sense of the word, be considered running. Trotting, skipping, even galloping, perhaps, but not running.

They'd gotten out of the cave, Justice as happy to stay silent as Hawke was to not hear anything from him, and caught sight of a rift moments before it disappeared.

"Dawdle," Hawke said out loud. "For Maker's sake, enjoy your victory, take some time to yourself. Take a bath. Get sex. Just stop closing my exits!"

"They cannot hear you," Justice said.

"Thanks, I was unaware, Hawke said sarcastically."

He couldn't tell if Justice looked confused, even if it would have been clear otherwise on Anders face, but the spirit absolutely looked unimpressed.

Hawke sighed. There were more rifts in sight, but he had no way of knowing how far apart they were in the real world. Did reaching for the nearest to the one that had closed mean it was the closest one for the Inquisitor to also close next?

"I need a Fade map."

"That one," Justice said, pointing to the rift on a craggy cliff, miles above them.

" _That_ one? The hardest one to get at. That's--oh no, you're right, of course it’s that one. It's always that one."

Cursing took up most of his breath as they made the climb. Now, of course, was the time for spiders. Hawke almost fell off twice trying to attack them. Landing a hit was the easy part, they fell off afterwards, keeping his grip was a bit more challenging.

No matter how hard the climb was, it was never the end. As Hawke dragged himself to the topmost point of the cliff mostly by his elbows, hearing the rifts below wink out of existence, he expected a giant spider, a slew of demons, or one last thing to tempt him.

So of course there was nothing. Except two rifts and a giant drop between them.

"Fuck," Hawke said, promising himself to lie to Varric and tell him he said something much wittier later. He breathed out, bent towards his legs and glanced back at Justice. "Let me guess, one of them is fake?"

"They are both real."

"Then I jump into one and it closes midway, squish goes the Champion?" Hawke guessed. Either way he'd have to make quite a jump to land over the edge and who knew how high up that rift would put him. Either way... squish.

"Choose one, it does not matter which," Justice said. He sounded off, almost impatient.

That was when Hawke finally understood. He knew there had to be something Justice was after beyond a good deed. "You want out. That's what this is about, isn't it?"

Anders' face glowed and cracked at the edges. "You would not have survived without me."

"I don't recall playing make a deal with a demon."

"I do not wish to be a demon," Justice said. "If I pass through the rift without a host, I will be. You are not like Anders. I will not be corrupted this time."

Hawke threw his staff down. It rattled against the stone. "Well, that settles it. Stay in the Fade it is."

The left rift, the one closest to the cliff started to crack around the edges, like someone was zipping it shut.

"Think on your actions, Hawke," Justice said. "The power I possess could be put to better use through you. You could protect those you love. When Corypheus returns you will have power to face him."

"Merrill was right," Hawke said, listening as his chance home shut. "Demons, spirits, it doesn't matter, you're all the same."

"I am not a demon." Justice looked behind Hawke, it was the only notice before the ground shook beneath them and half the cliff gave way underneath the force of the blast.

"Did you really think that was going to work?" Hawke asked once the rubble settled. "Have I, in any way, seemed like a person that would say, 'all right, vengeance ghost, take a trip on my shoulder'?"

"You would give up all you left behind? Merely to spite me?" Justice asked. "All your friends, the remaining family, those that mourn you? You would ignore the cries of those that need you? Ignore the justice that your world yearns for?"

"Your idea of justice and mine don't exactly match up. You start wielding it like a weapon and it's no longer justice."

That seemed to infuriate the spirit, the glow of blue breaking through Anders's face was now turning red. "Do you truly think the war is the end of this? That Mages and Templars can live in peace after all that has transpired?"

"I don't know," Hawke said. "And look at that," he pointed behind him where the last rift was closing, "neither of us are going to find out."

Justice was as still as an Anders-shaped statue. "You have come all this way only to give up?"

"Of course not," Hawke said. "Who am I? Carver?"

He turned immediately and ran for it. There was one rift left. If Hawke had time to look down, he bet the entire view of the Fade would have given him no more rifts but the one in front of him. Of course, he had no time. He pushed off the edge of the remaining cliff as hard as he could with his magic. The green glow of the rift was closing fast, but he could feel the pull of the outside world on the other end, he reached for it...

Shockwaves pulsed through him and the world went upside down. Hawke took a breath of real air and then had barely time for a yelp before dropping from four feet in the air into a rocky bank of water.

"Ow." An understatement to say the least. The mana of the Fade had completely disappeared as had his energy levels. He was a dried out husk. A bruised, dried out husk. It was all he could do to lift his head and not drown in a few inches of water.

"Hawke!" Now, that was a familiar voice.

"Hawke?" That wasn't.

The familiar voice was attached to a body that had no familiar features and Hawke wasn't sure which blur lifted him out of the water, but he was almost certain one of the blurs was shorter and furrier than the other.

"Don't cry, Varric," Hawke wheezed. "You know, how I like to make an entrance."


	7. Epilogue

"Andrastre's tits?" Hawke suggested.

"Too on the nose," Varric said with a shake of his head.

Hawke sighed, but even that hurt, so he shifted a little on the bed, ignoring the way Varric's eyes worried over even that movement. "Maker's balls?"

"More on that nose," Varric said with a snort that covered none of his worrying.

Seven months in the Fade had preternaturally kept Hawke alive, but only just. He could barely get out of bed to relieve himself and even that victory had been an argument. He hoped it wasn't going to be another seven months until he could recover from the whole ordeal.

"Now that is what I would call a pair of low-hanging fruit," Hawke said with a flourish.

Varric smiled. "I think we have a winner."

"I wish I'd said it then to see the look on his face."

"You think he'll find another body?" Varric asked, no longer taking notes for his now much improved story of the Inquisitor's rise to glory. Of which, Hawke was getting an entire chapter.

"He doesn't want to be a demon," Hawke said, yawning. He'd only woken up a few hours ago and he already his body wanted to drag him back to sleep. He preferred seeing the Fade that way, but if he could avoid it all together he would have. Unfortunately as much as time did not work the same in the Fade (entire days had passed between closing the two rifts on the cliff), time had ravaged his body even with the help of magic to keep him alive.

He sighed and settled more on the bed. The pillow was soft. He was certain someone had changed it since the last time he'd slept.

"I feel like there's someone to ask about the differences between spirits and demons, but I keep forgetting who it is. Must be a side-effect of the Fade."

"Something like that." Varric snorted and patted his shoulder. "Get some rest, Hawke."

"All I ever--"

The sentence didn't finish, the pillow was too soft and his eyes slid shut.

When he opened his eyes again he thought he was still dreaming. "Fenris."

Fenris had taken the chair next to the bed, a silent presence of comfort with none of the frills. So much like him, Hawke knew he was awake.

"How are you feeling?" Fenris asked, his voice strained. His hair had gotten longer, Hawke wondered if that was a choice or if there was no one he trusted to cut it.

"You don't hate my beard?" Hawke asked, before realizing how insane it sounded out of context.

Fenris's dark eyebrows furrowed. "It's facial hair, why would it matter?"

"I'll shave it, if you want."

"Perhaps you should rest," Fenris said, uneasily.

"I'll rest when I'm dead, come here," Hawke said and pushed himself up to his elbows. Fenris's hand came down on his shoulder and pushed him back down into the bed.

"You will not be dead again," he said, sharply. His hand was still on Hawke's shoulder.

"Yes, serah."

"This is not a joking matter, Hawke," Fenris said. The hand on Hawke's shoulder moved to cup his face, thumb skimming against the stubble and hair of his beard.

"Fenris," Hawke breathed, lifting his hand to press Fenris's against his face and then slid that hand down the elf's arm. Fenris leaned over him and kissed him softly.

"Can I say how relieved I am, you can, in fact, live without me?" Hawke said quietly.

Fenris's lips were still close to his so he felt the frown more than he saw it.

"You're waiting until I'm well enough and then you're going to hit me, aren't you?"

Fenris made an affirmative grunt and then brushed his lips against Hawke's again.

***

Recovery proved more difficult than Hawke anticipated. Especially after Fenris arrived and refused to let their remaining senior mage anywhere near Hawke. Something to do with being from Tevinter. Hawke hadn't even noticed the accent, too busy staring at the man's ass. He suspected that might have been as much of a deterrent for Fenris as the Tevinter business.

It took three weeks before he was recovered enough to walk around the grounds--which made his and Varric's Diamondback games much easier to host. It was another two weeks before Fenris would let him out of his sight at all and even then it was clearly with some effort. Hawke still couldn't produce more than a weak flicker of flame without wanting to convulse, though he was not stupid enough to appeal to Fenris for sympathy on having trouble with magic. The Fade had drained him of more than his energy.

Hawke had only taken a short walk to the courtyard, listening in on some banal argument about who's turn it was to wash the Inquisitor's bed-sheets when Fenris appeared.

He was doing such a bad job of looking casual about it that Hawke had to fight a laugh.

Hawke was very obviously bad at that too, because Fenris glared at him and walked at a more even, and quicker, pace to reach him.

"Did you know Divine Victoria used to work here?" Hawke asked once he was close enough. "Here I was thinking the Divines popped out from a flower patch, turns out they're people."

"You asked the surgeon if you were well enough to travel," Fenris said.

Hawke sighed. "At least pretend not to spy on me, Fenris."

"You're not well enough to travel."

"Not according to her," Hawke retorted, but he knew where Fenris's overbearing protectiveness was coming from, it would be impossible not to, so he tried not to poke at it. He reached for the elf's hand and smiled as Fenris took it. "We can't stay here."

A flash of guilt for the way Fenris visibly relaxed on the word 'we'.

"Where do you wish to go?"

"Alistair hasn't replied to my letters for weeks now. There's trouble brewing with the Wardens. More trouble," he added. He wish he hadn't been such an ass before the Warden had gone off. It was a good thing that he'd stayed in the Fade, he doubted Alistair would have survived and the Wardens needed good leadership and Carver needed allies or at least people that would put up with him.

"There's trouble everywhere," Fenris said, his fingers slid up Hawke's wrist. "You're worried about Carver."

"Don't phrase it like that when we surprise him," Hawke said.

"I have a feeling he'll guess," Fenris said, lips twitching into a smile.

Hawke lifted his free hand and traced the edge of that smile, avoiding the lyrium marks to make his way to the top of Fenris's ear. He could have spent all day like that, touching parts of his face and reassuring himself that this was real.

"I know why _I_ dislike this place," Fenris said, quietly for more than the servants and petitioners milling in and out of the courtyard. "You want to leave for more than Carver's sake."

"It's Kirkwall," Hawke said. "Not yet, but it will be. It's power and bluster and no matter who is sitting on the Viscount or the Inquisitor's seat, eventually they'll be as corrupt as the rest of them. They can do what they want, but I don't want to watch it happen again."

Fenris didn't disagree with him, but he frowned a little and glanced up at one of the towers. From this angle, even with the small bit of wandering Hawke had done, he couldn't tell which of the Inquisition's members he was glaring at, but he had a good guess.

"I hate politics," Hawke said. "Give me a good old fashioned dragon fight any day."

"The Qunari may fight you on that," Fenris said. He sounded a little too cheerful about it. Hawke reminded himself not to be a jealous hypocrite.

"Not literal dragons," Hawke said. "Just things I can light on fire." If he was ever going to be able to make fire again.

"Your metaphor is falling to shambles," Fenris said, dryly. "You want to light a _dragon_ on fire?"

Hawke had no retort for that so he curled his hand around Fenris's neck and drew him so that he was pressed flush against him. "I'll show you fire."

"You're not well enough," Fenris said, for the hundredth time. At least he was starting to sound annoyed about it too.

"I asked the surgeon about that too."

"So did I," Fenris retorted.

"What does she know?" Hawke was exasperated. "She doesn't even have all those parts."

"Hawke," Fenris said. He always managed to make his name into an expletive. It was as sexy as it was frustrating. At the moment both were the same.

It was no matter. He was too used to paying attention to Fenris's boundaries in these types of situation not to automatically listen, even when it was Fenris imposing boundaries for Hawke's sake.

Hawke sighed. "I will be asking every physician on the way to Weisshaupt."

"That I believe is not an exaggeration," Fenris said with a self-satisfied chuckle.

If only physical stamina matched desire... then again they'd never leave the bedroom. He'd have been in his bedroom while Kirkwall went up in flames. Dragons could have attacked.

"One more thing," Hawke said. "How would you feel about a slight detour?"

"You want to see how big Isabela's hat is?" Fenris guessed.

Hawke laughed. "Add that to the list, but no."

Fenris looked at him expectantly.

"Amaranthine. There's a cat there, I'd like to pick it up."

Understandably that hadn't been what Fenris was expecting, but did he have to be so suspicious about it? "A cat?"

"Yes," Hawke said, fingers threading through the longer hair tied behind Fenris's neck. If his knuckles also tried to kneed out some tension and suspicion, so be it.

"You want to take a cat to the Grey Wardens?"

"No, they were who got rid of it in the first place. I want to keep it. Or, no that's a terrible idea, we'd kill it in a week." He sighed. "I want to give it to Merrill. She's on our way."

Fenris narrowed his eyes at him, but then finally let out a disgusted grunt that meant agreement.

"I should almost die more often if it lets me win an argument."

Fenris pulled away from him the moment that left his lips. Hawke felt like an idiot. He reached out for the elf's arm and Fenris whirled around, but instead of pushing him against the statue, he gently took Hawke's arm off his.

"Not everything's a joke," Hawke said. "I do know that, but it's so much easier when it is."

Fenris's breathing was uneven, angry, but he was holding most of it back. He was still handling Hawke with delicacy, even this angry. "You were dead for months."

"I wasn't actually dead."

"I didn't know that," Fenris managing to make a growl into a whisper. He turned from Hawke but didn't walk away.

"That I'm sorry about," Hawke said. "Not that there was a way to send word. I didn't notice any Fade-ravens."

Fenris let out a breath, the release of tension so great Hawke mirrored it with his own.

"I... am trying not to be angry about this," Fenris said.

Hawke let out a dry snort. "Considering I haven't once woken to you hovering over me with a knife, I'd say you're doing a good job."

"Stop," Fenris said. To anyone else it would have sounded like a command, from Fenris it sounded like a plea.

"I wasn't trying to die," Hawke said, more seriously. "If anything, you are the best reason for me to belligerently push through all odds and keep living."

He placed his hands on Fenris's shoulders and walked closer, taking each movement as slow as he had when they'd first gotten together. Fenris didn't turn or relax, but he didn't push him away either, so Hawke pressed his nose into the back of the elf's skull, smelling the strange and wonderful lyrium enhanced scent of his hair.

Fenris said nothing, but he let out another breath, more like a sigh. It was strange how comforting that noise had become, even when exasperated. Hawke slid his hands down Fenris's shoulders to his chest, until he was embracing him from behind. Fenris relaxed into it, leaning back against him. They stayed like that for a while, listening to the idle chatter and the breeze that stuttered as it hit the broken bits of wall in the fortress.

"Did you really spend all your time killing slavers? Nothing else."

"It occupied enough of my attention," Fenris said.

"You know you can't kill Dorian," Hawke commented.

"Won't is different than can't," Fenris replied.

Hawke snorted a laugh. "I believe we've found your life's creed. I'll stitch it into your smallclothes next to 'I hate mages.'"

"Not all mages." Fenris rested his hands on Hawke's arms still wrapped around him. "Merrill, for instance."

"You wound me with your sarcasm."

"She has yet to prove herself an abomination," Fenris said so seriously that it was difficult not to laugh. "The former slaves were displaced, much like Orana. And those not forced into slavery needed... protection."

"So you killed slavers and Merrill tied flowers around the grateful free elves? Did Isabela boat the rest off to safety?"

"Occasionally," Fenris said.

"Maker, you're not joking. Were Aveline and Carver in on this too? Varric?"

"Varric has been busy organizing Diamondback games in your recovery room." Doubtful Fenris could even attempt to sound more sour than he did about that.

"Well if he'd organized Wicked Grace, I'd be at a disadvantage since I was usually half undressed anyway."

Fenris grunted. "I merely mean he was here with this... Inquisition. The rest of us were elsewhere."

"Huh," Hawke said.

Fenris turned only his head to glance back and up at him. "Why does this bother you?"

"Not bothered, only surprised."

"That we were able to function without you?" Fenris asked, raising an eyebrow. It had to be good that he was making a joke about it finally. Maybe.

"A little," Hawke said, but smiled even over Fenris's unimpressed stare. It was a wonderful feeling that his family, that Fenris, would have the others if Hawke wasn't there. "We should go back and continue, help Merrill and Aveline and the rest of them, once we're done checking on the Wardens."

Fenris frowned. "That could be months from now."

Hawke cocked an eyebrow at him. "You don't think there'll be Tevinter slavers trying to take advantage in a few months?"

"Unfortunately."

"Then, what's the problem?"

"It is a _long_ plan, Hawke."

"I'm tired of looking back, Fenris," Hawke said. "I want to look forward. Let's have plans, we can always break them later if we want."

"As long as they do not break us," Fenris said. It sounded a little like a joke, but he turned in Hawke's arms and kissed him much more demandingly than he had since his arrival. Fenris's mouth was hot and wet against his, setting off a burn so deep he thought he might explode from it.

Which is... almost what happened.

Fenris jumped back, instinctively and Hawke stamped out the fire with his boot. "My magic's back!" he said too cheerfully.

Fenris was not the only eye in the courtyard eyeing him uneasily, but Hawke couldn’t pay any of them mind with how much giddy relief filled him. He really thought he’d almost lost it. That he’d have to really actually learn how to shoot an arrow or wield a sword.

"Excellent," Fenris said, his voice dripping with derision.

Hawke could still taste that kiss, it warred for dominance with his relief that his magic was still there somewhere, only drained from the Fade like his physical energy. "You _just_ said not all mages."

"I used Merrill as an example," Fenris retorted. He looked all flustered, olive skin slightly ruddy around his cheeks and the tips of his ears, even his lyrium was a little brighter. And his hair was rumpled. Hawke probably could have made the entire courtyard burn down from only looking at him.

"It caught me off guard, you can kiss me again." Hawke could still taste it. Fenris crossed his arms over his chest and glanced around at them, glaring at the lookers-on. Hawke couldn't help the laugh. "It's not my fault you make me hot!"

"Ugh," Fenris said and shook his head with complete disgust.

"You're right, that was too on the nose. How about, you light my fire? Our passion burns brightest? Fenris--oh come on," Hawke called out as the elf turned from him to head back towards the direction of the tavern. "Don't get so heated up about it!"

Hawke was chuckling to himself even as Fenris disappeared around the corner, but his laugh quickly turned into a quiet little breath of relief.


End file.
